August 15, 2018: Professor K S Jomo, a member of new Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Council of Eminent Persons, has publicly called for the new government to decline to ratify the TPP-11, officially titled the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
August 9, 2018: The Canadian mining company Bear Creek recently won an ISDS case against Peru and was awarded US$37 million in compensation and costs. The government had refused a mining license because the company had not sought full and informed consent from indigenous people, resulting in mass protests against the mine in 2011. AFTINET has been using this case as an example of how ISDS can undermine indigenous rights.
August 3, 2018: 49 community organisations have written to ALP parliamentarians asking them to vote against the TPP-11 implementing legislation.
Media Release: July 30, 2018: “AFTINET will present evidence today to a Senate inquiry that the TPP-11 increases corporate rights at the expense of people’s rights and the environment and should not be implemented,” AFTINET Convener Dr Patricia Ranald said today.
July 25, 2018: The US Trump administration is escalating its America First strategy of using its power as the world’s strongest economy to get more benefits for US corporations from individual trading partners, in the hope of domestic political advantage in the mid-term Congressional elections due in November 2018. But there are long-term consequences for the global economy and the global trading system.
The original TPP-12 trade deal between the US Australia and 10 other Pacific Rim countries could not proceed after the US withdrew in 2017.
July 9, 2018: Canadian union leader Lana Payne, from the manufacturing union Unifor, has blasted the Canadian government for its claim that the Trans-Pacific Partnership – 11 is more “progressive” than the original TPP-12. Payne honed in on the labour chapter, which she argues is even weaker than in the original TPP-12, to make her point.
July 2, 2018: Centre Alliance Senator Rex Patrick last Friday succeeded in obtaining the total legal costs to Australia of defending its tobacco plain packaging laws in the case brought by Philip Morris tobacco company against the Australian Government under investor-state dispute settlement provisions.
June 21, 2018: Open Source Industry Australia (OSIA) has warned in a Techdirt article that the TPP-11 chapter on e-commerce may damage or destroy the free software licensing sector.
Over 120 people from 20 union, church, aid and environment organisations rallied outside the Sydney public hearing of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties concerning the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP-11). Speakers focused on the impact the TPP-11 would have on workers, temporary migrant workers and women, the cost of medicines, and the extra rights it would give investing corporations to sue the Australian government. The JSCOT and a Senate Inquiry will report back to parliament in September on whether or not the parliament should vote in favour of the legislation to implement the TPP-11. The protest movement is urging MPs to vote against the implementing legislation. See photos here.